The long-time head of the video platform YouTube succumbed to lung cancer, her husband Dennis Troper announced on Facebook on Friday. Wojcicki led YouTube, which Google bought in 2006, from 2014 until last year.
“My beloved wife of 26 years and mother of our five children left us today,” wrote husband Troper. Susan was not only his best friend and life partner, but also a “brilliant mind,” a loving mother and beloved friend to many. She had been suffering from lung cancer for the past two years.
Wojcicki was working for the US computer giant Intel when she rented her garage in Menlo Park, California, to her friends, the two Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, in 1998. A year later, she joined Google as employee number 16 and the first marketing manager. She was involved in the development of image search at Google, the purchase of YouTube and the advertising platform Doubleclick. She gave up her position at YouTube last year.
Google CEO Sundar Pinchai wrote on the online service X that Susan was “more important to Google’s history than anyone else.” It was hard to imagine the world without her. Wojcicki was an “incredible person,” a “leader and friend” who had an enormous impact on the world. “I am one of countless Googlers who are better because we knew her. We will miss her dearly.”
